The Mother Daughter Relationship in The Kitchen God's Wife
Relationships mold people's thoughts and the way they live their lives. One very important relationship is the relationship between parents and their children. Parents are the first teachers of children. The most significant lesson one learns from them is love. When a baby is first born it instantly will feel love from the mother. A mother loves and nurtures her baby while it is still in her womb making the relationship between a mother and her child stronger than any other relationship. Only a woman can nurture her baby by using only her body. The bond between the mother and daughter is even more intense because they share the same femininity. A mother and daughter can bond like no other. Girls grow up looking up to their mother and wanting to resemble them when they grow up. Daughters seek their mother's to give them advice when they need help throughout their lives. When a girl is struck with a problem the first person she will turn to would be her mother. However some women are unable to have strong relationships with their mothers, this can be seen in then novel The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. Unfortunately Jiang Weili wasn't able to have a powerful relationship with her mother. Because of her mothers absence Jiang Weili wasn't able to find her own identity and isn't able to have a productive relationship with her daughter. Pearl feels alienated from her mother however, Jiang Weili only believes she is doing the best for her daughter. Pearl and Winnie prove that the mother daughter relationship is essential for a girl to become a woman. The lack of such a relationship is severely detrimental to a girl growing up.
Jiang We...
... middle of paper ...
...gic comedy with a happy ending. The novel is a love story but not with a male and female but with a mother and her daughter.
Work Cited
Chapman, Jeff and John D. Jorgenson, eds. "Tan, Amy." Contemporary Authors Vol.54. Detroit: Gale, 1997.
Graham, Judith, ed. Current Biography Yearbook Vol. 1992, New York: The H.W Wilson Company, 1993
Gray, Paul. "The Joys and Sorrows of Amy Tan." Time Magazine 19 February, 2001:72-74
Hunter, Jeffery W. and Timothy J. White, eds. "Amy Tan 1952- ."
Contemporary Literary Criticism CLC 120. Farmington Hills: Gale, 1999
Kim-Chan, Hyung, ed. "Amy Tan (1952- )." Distinguished Asian American: Biographical dictionary. Westport: Greenwood, 1999.
Kramer, Barbara. Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club. Spring Field: Enslow, 1996
Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God's Wife, New York: Ivy Books, 1991
3.Graham, Judith, ed. Current Biography Yearbook Vol. 1962, New York: The H.W Wilson Company, 1993
Tachiki, Amy; Wong, Eddie; Odo, Franklin, eds. (1971). Roots: An Asian American Reader. University of California, Los Angeles Press.
Vol. 8. Chicago, IL: World Book, 2009. Print. G Freeman, Shanna.
Proctor’s confession to having seen Satan is fake, and without the confession he must be executed. Proctor’s confession is soon to be revealed false when he states: “ You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me! It is no part of your salvation that you should use me!” ( Act 4 Lines 281- 283). John’s decision to keep himself honest, while at the same time, wanting to confess, leaves him with a magnitude of frustration aimed at himself. With the option to save himself by lying and confessing about having Satan visit him, John feels that this is his chance to prove to himself that he is not a fraud. John’s decision to destroy the signed confession causes him to forgive himself and not to think of himself as a
Third Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2005.
America’s veterans should be honored because they have suffered through so many hardships that others could not and have not survived, and they did it for their country that they loved and still love today.
The Mother Daughter Relationship in "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen. I stand here ironing, a unique phrase uttered by a woman in her conquest of life. It may seem like an unwanted phrase to many, but it has a deep meaning behind it. This phrase is almost whispered by the narrator of?I Stand Here Ironing,?
Another important work Miller wrote, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 17th century. It is a time when jealousy and suspicion poisoned the thinking of an entire town. Neighbor turned against neighbor when events happened that could not be explained. Accusations turned into a mad hunt for witches who did not exist. One of the main characters of the play is John Proctor, a well-respected man with a good name in the town. As the play develops, John Proctor’s moral dilemma becomes evident: he must decide whether to lie and confess to witchcraft in order to save his life, or to die an honest man, true to his beliefs.
No two mother and daughter relationships are alike. After reading “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan I realized that the two stories had the same subject matter: mother and daughter relationships. These two stories show different cultures, generations and parenting methods. Although the two mothers act differently, they are both ultimately motivated by the same desire: to be a good parent. In addition, while researching related articles, I realized that there were two recurring themes of mothers and daughters: respect and diverse ways of parenting.
The rifts between mothers and daughters continue to separate them, but as the daughters get older they become more tolerant of their mothers. They learn they do not know everything about their mothers, and the courage their mothers showed during their lives is astounding. As they get older they learn they do not know everything, and that their mothers can still teach them much about life. They grow closer to their mothers and learn to be proud of their heritage and their culture. They acquire the wisdom of understanding, and that is the finest feeling to have in the world.
In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller goes into detail about the historical event, the Salem witchcraft trials which took place in Massachusetts in 1692. The drama centers on John and Elizabeth Proctor and a young girl Abigail Williams, whom John Proctor has committed adultery with. In order to get rid of Elizabeth so that Abigail can have John to herself Abigail accuses John’s wife of witchcraft, a crime that was highly frowned upon. John proctor goes through a series of changes from being a horrible person who cheated on his wife to a tragic hero who will give up his life to say his wife. John proctor is viewed as many things in this play but at the end he come out an honest and noble man.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers From a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin Books, 1989.
John Proctor, whether consciously or not, constantly determines the path to his fate through his actions, choices, and judgment. Though overall he is an honorable and principled man, he is flawed by one crucially harmful past deed to his reputation—his committing of adultery with seventeen-year-old Abigail Putnam. In a final attempt to save his wife from the accusation of witchcraft, he admits to his crime of lechery, by which he plans to unveil Abigail’s true motive for accusing his wife Elizabeth: “A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that…She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it, I set myself entirely in your hands” (Miller 113). This merely warrants him harshly disapproving views from his puritanical peers, and not even this act of utter honesty and sacrifice can reverse the witch trial hysteria that his affair with Abigail sparked. Both he and his wife Elizabeth are jailed, he is hanged, and Abigail maintains po...
No matter what, people form thousands of relationships to get through the ups and downs in life. To be frank, life would be pretty dull and empty without relationships. One of the most important relationships is the one that people form with their parents (Perry). Early family relationships are the foundation for adult relationships and a child’s personality (Perry; Greenberg). Alicia Lieberman, a psychology professor, said “The foundation for how a child feels about himself and the world is how he feels in his relationship with the primary caregiver” (Greenberg). According to Erik Erikson and the attachment theory, the bond between a caregiver and child has a huge impact on a child’s development because of social and emotional effects.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a statement to the 17th century witchcraft. The Crucible renders John Proctor as a puritan, a husband, and a highly respected man. His name is his prime possession. John Proctor is a farmer and a villager who is faced with intense dilemma. He also commits adultery, which becomes his tragic flaw. Therefore he is to make a decision to tell the truth and ruin his name or lie and save his most prized possession. By this John Proctor is portrayed as an honest, tenacious, and faithful man.